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Where we live

Merion Village more affordable than pricey neighbor

Viewed by many as a less-expensive extension of German Village, Merion Village seeks its own identity

Courtney Hergesheimer | The Columbus DispatchAndrew Oaks, 27, skips class to enjoy the weather on his Merion Village porch, Tuesday, April 1.

Courtney Hergesheimer | The Columbus DispatchPeyton Parrish, 4, colors with chalk on her great aunt's front sidewalk. Peyton and and her grandparents were visiting from Richmond, Va.

Courtney Hergesheimer | The Columbus DispatchThe sign leading in to Merion Village from South High Street.

Courtney Hergesheimer | The Columbus DispatchMark Webster, cleans up his backyard to get ready for the planting season. Webster has collected drift wood from Lake Erie that he uses to decorate the front and back of his house.

Courtney Hergesheimer | The Columbus DispatchPeyton Parrish, 4, colors with chalk on her great aunt's front sidewalk. Peyton and and her grandparents were visiting from Richmond, Va.

Courtney Hergesheimer | The Columbus DispatchPeyton Parrish, 4, colors with chalk on her great aunt's front sidewalk. Peyton and and her grandparents were visiting from Richmond, Va.

Courtney Hergesheimer | The Columbus DispatchThe sign leading in to Merion Village from South High Street.

These are the places we call home -- the places where we raise our families, cook our meals and spend our lives. Not only have these places play a role in our individual histories, but they have also played a role in Columbus history. The Dispatch visits some of these communities and shares their stories.

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Richard McKay lives next door to the building his grandfather built in Merion Village more than
90 years ago.

The structure that now houses the Red Brick Tap & Grill at Gates and Bruck streets was a
bakery in the 1920s. McKay’s grandparents, his mother and her three siblings all lived above the
business.

“By the time I was in elementary school, that was a bar,” said McKay, 67, who has lived on Bruck
Street for 42 years. And over the decades, a bar it has remained.

Although that hasn’t changed, the neighborhood has. In some ways, residents say, it has become
an extension of neighboring German Village, but less expensive.

“A lot of people choose it for that reason,” said Tony Roell, president of the Merion Village
Association.

They include Roell, an associate at MKSK, an architectural-design firm in the nearby Brewery
District who went to Ohio State University and then moved to German Village, where he rented.

“I liked German Village but could afford to buy in Merion Village,” said Roell, 30.

He and his wife, Sarah, bought their E. Gates Street house three blocks south of German Village
in 2007.

Although Merion Village is close to German Village, there’s a different look to its houses.
There are some brick streets but fewer brick houses.

“If you look at the architecture, we’re not German Village,” Roell said. “There needs to be some
identity to help link everybody together.”

That identity has been a work in progress. McKay grew up on nearby E. Mithoff Street, where his
mother still lives. Back in the 1950s, the area wasn’t known as Merion Village, he said.

What was it called? “Nothing, really. Just the South End,” he said.

The name started with William Merion, who settled on 1,800 acres in the area in 1809, according
to the neighborhood association. Merion married Sarah Holt, and they built a home near S. High and
Moler streets.

By the 1830s, canals were opening, and Mr. Merion developed Merion’s Landing, a port on the
canal system.

By the mid-1800s, German immigrants began moving into the area, joined by those from Ireland,
Italy and Hungary, as the South Side became home to those working in nearby industries.

In 1900, the city school system opened South High School, at 345 E. Deshler Ave.

The four-story building eventually became Barrett Middle School, which now is empty. It is the
site of a proposed housing development by Homeport, the nonprofit developer formerly known at the
Columbus Housing Partnership.

Homeport wants to convert the original school building into 50 apartments and build an
additional 100 apartments in duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes on the site.

Some area residents are concerned about density and design.

“I’m still hoping they reduce the density,” Roell said, adding that he would like to see a
mixed-use development there, with offices and retail.

Homeport officials acknowledge the criticism.

“We’re trying to find a way to get creative to address those concerns and make the economics
work,” said George Tabit, Homeport’s vice president for real-estate development.

Redevelopment in the neighborhood has attracted new residents, including Mark Webster, a
Cleveland-area native who said he rents there because of nearby Schiller Park in German
Village.

“I’ve got dogs. It’s a great dog neighborhood,” said Webster, a musician. “I got to see the
variety of architecture, how it transitioned from German Village to farther south. It’s still very
connected.”

McKay said he has seen a lot of new residents.

“On our block, we’ve been here the longest,” said McKay, who lives with his wife, Jane. He
worked for Columbus State for 35 years, running warehouse operations over the last 10 of those
years.

Bob Leighty, who led the neighborhood association until December, credits the city’s
establishment of the Merion-Southwood Community Reinvestment Area in the 1990s and the $1.15
million that accompanied it with helping to transform the neighborhood.

When Leighty, now executive director of the Parsons Avenue Merchants Association, moved to the
neighborhood in the late 1980s, some areas were struggling with crack houses and deteriorating
schools.

But he wanted to live in an older house in a “pedestrian-scale” neighborhood. “You could tell it
was an area that had promise,” he said.